Truth AND Consequences

Two recent events made me begin to wonder what truth really is, and if it’s even worth finding.

Remember the guy Dean I told you about a couple of posts ago? You know, the fuck buddy who promised to take me to the hospital the morning of my surgery (“No one should go to the hospital alone in a cab,” said he emphatically), then totally flunked out on me, not returning my texts and voicemails the fateful weekend before my surgery so that I ended up alone taking a cab, totally devastated he had let me down.

But my surgery went well and I let the whole matter drop out of my head.

Forcing myself not to sound bitchy, I texted back: “So what happened? You OK?”

“I was sick,” was his response.

“Well Dean,” I replied, “I still want to see you again before I leave for my summer home in PA. When have you got some time?”

“6:30.”

“Tonight?”

“Yes.”

Now the Ray of Christmas Past or some other justifiably pissed off fag might have used this golden opportunity to tear the guy apart when he showed up at my door for abandoning me at such a vulnerable moment in my life.

But, no, I said to myself, Ray, (I talk to myself all the time, that’s how I keep sane), Ray, why poison another lustful evening of great sex, and after telling me he had the flu (I didn’t know the flu incapacitated you from texting a message like “Sorry, can’t take you – sick with the flu.”), we went into my bedroom and fucked for the next six hours.

Just call me a practical queer boy.

In fact we fucked one more time – as hot as ever, maybe even hotter – just before I left for my summer home in PA where my other half, there since April, alerted me not to bother him since his beloved New York Mets are in the pennant’s race.

Oh yea, Dean said he would watch my home for me while I was gone. Sure, said I to myself, like the time he got up at 5 to take me to the hospital, But hey, what do you want? Promises or a hot romp in the hay?

Then there’s the tale of my close buddy, Joe, who divorced his wife of forty years to play gay blade in Lauderdale at the tender age of 67. More naïve than a newborn about “The Life,” he fell for Jesse, a fifty something, still attractive, totally broke, former felon/meth head who he had move in with him. And who he thought was as clean as a whistle.

Sure.

When he caught Jesse with his pipe, he kicked him out, and two months later called me like a madman that the fuck had stolen his gold jewelry. My reply: “You’re lucky that’s all that happened.”

Fast forward to a few weekends before I left for PA when I got a cryptic come hither hit on one of the hook-up sites from a guy who looked hot and said he had wanted to meet for a long time. I didn’t realize till I got to his apartment (actually a friend’s who was allowing him to sleep on the couch) that it was – lo and behold! – Jesse.

Now, with all the grief he had supposedly given my buddy Joe, you think I would have politely turned around and left. But why? I’m no Boy Scout, Jesse is still a hot motherfucker – and a free agent. So we played.

After the nasty, Jesse confessed he had had the hots for me even when he was with Joe who he described as a total control freak who he fucked more than once despite Joe’s rep as Mr. Total Top. He also denied he stole his jewelry, since as a felon that would have been the stupidest thing he could do.

He admitted he had used meth daily like some people popped aspirin – for the last thirty years – and that his record as a convicted drug dealer had fucked him in the job market, leaving him to live on his seven hundred dollar disability check as a poz guy and, at 53, relying on the kindness of strangers And taking shit from guys like his “friend” whose apartment he lived in for a song, because he had no choice. His fantasy option was to make something of his skills as a DJ.

Ok, so who would you believe? Joe, my delusional buddy, who tells me every guy he makes thinks he’s beautiful? Or Jesse, the felon who once made ten grand a week dealing meth?